The trailer for Join Us first caught many eyes during the Xbox Showcase in June, presenting a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One quirky detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that shoots serpents instead of bullets.
According to Joe Dietsch, the chief executive officer and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the idea came from a team member’s child who asked, “Can there be a snake gun?” Thanks to a rapid‑prototyping tool the studio had built, Dietsch was able to assemble a functional snake‑shooting weapon in roughly thirty minutes. The result was a mind‑blowing surprise for the youngster, and the weapon remains a permanent fixture in the game.
That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay players can expect from Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival experience that lets you recruit followers—or other players in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small team to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger workforce.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: “We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build this with twelve people, and they all laughed.
They thought it was impossible.” The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets. Many of the developers come from indie‑film backgrounds and are accustomed to “punching above their weight.” After eighty pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio. The founding trio brings deep Hollywood connections.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—who co‑founded Wolf Haus and co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie films Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott is the son of veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before he moved on to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
He recalls, “Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to actually creating something. I started watching YouTube tutorials and tinkering.” Despite having no formal training, he built a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that merged his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He created a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the concept quickly gained momentum.
Dooma Wendschuh, the studio’s chief financial officer and narrative director, entered the gaming world after a career as a film producer and screenwriter. In the early 2000s he founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis‑formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After that windfall he bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, planning to retire and walk his dog on the beach.
Yet a sudden call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry. Upon seeing a demo of Join Us, Wendschuh was “blown away” and decided to come out of retirement. Wendschuh then introduced the project to Reid Schneider, a former vice‑president at Warner Bros.
Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet. Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With this core in place, the studio turned its attention to financing. Pitching began in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. Although the concept impressed many, securing capital proved challenging.
After initial outreach, the team enlisted the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, re‑approached investors in 2024, and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—and the presence of veteran game industry figures like Schneider and Chartrand—for opening doors. “Derek Douglas, our agent at CAA, was also my agent when I was making games for twelve years.
He once headed the video‑game department at William Morris,” he notes. What truly sets Join Us apart is the way it is being built: a full‑scale, open‑world title developed by only thirteen full‑time staff members.
Dietsch explains that the team deliberately kept the roster small to ensure everyone could contribute creatively and feel ownership over the final product. To make such an ambitious scope feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on. “If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch says.
“We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a massive map without the project collapsing under its own weight.” Consequently, much of the first year of development was spent simultaneously designing gameplay concepts and constructing the internal tools that would bring those concepts to life. The funding structure also gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect these tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s equity investment was used to self‑fund the game's development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing later on. This equity‑backed model aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the team to keep building reusable tools even if it slows short‑term progress.
When asked about the role of generative AI—a hot topic in game development—both Dietsch and Wendschuh were unequivocal: the studio does not rely on AI for creative work. “We believe a human touch is essential,” Dietsch asserts. “Turning development over to an algorithm would defeat the reason we get up in the morning.” Wendschuh adds that while the team uses AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, it never touches the artistic side of production. Interestingly, Krafton, which has publicly positioned itself as an “AI‑first” company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant.
The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game's massive six‑kilometre‑square map, which was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors. “That was non‑negotiable for us, even as a small indie,” says Dietsch. The decision reflects a broader philosophy that technology should augment, not replace, human creativity.
Dietsch also reflects on the differences between filmmaking and game development. In film, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and massive budgets before a director ever sees the final product. By contrast, a game idea can be prototyped in a single morning, inserted into the engine, and instantly visualized. This immediacy, he argues, is exhilarating and empowers creators to iterate rapidly.
Wendschuh observes that traditional film production is heavily front‑loaded: securing a handful of high‑profile talent is often the key to greenlighting a project, creating a steep gate‑keeping barrier. While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a consumer‑grade camera, achieving commercial success without star power or distribution deals is rare. Video games, however, face far fewer gatekeepers. “You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game,” he says, noting that the lower barrier to entry makes the medium especially attractive to independent creators.
Both men agree that, at their core, filmmaking and game design share the same creative impulse: delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. Dietsch recalls that as a six‑year‑old he wanted to make either movies or games, and the path he took was largely determined by chance—a camera for Christmas and a TI‑83 calculator for early programming. Ultimately, whether through pixels or film frames, the goal remains the same: to craft a compelling narrative that resonates with players and viewers alike.